It is this impulse to change the quality of experience that I recognize as central to creation. . . . Out of all that could be done, you choose one thing. What that one thing is, nothing else can tell you--you come at it over unmarked snow.

An owl sound wandered along the road with me. I didn't hear it--I breathed it into my ears.

And the things you know before you hear them; these are you and the reason you are in the world.

Anyone who breathes is in the rhythm business.

Some people are blinded by their experience. Soldiers know how important war is. Owners of slaves learn every day how inferior subject peoples are.

There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough.

The more you let yourself be distracted from where you are going, the more you are the person that you are. It's not so much like getting lost as it is like getting found.